


respite

by tarquin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: College AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 08:58:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2422874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s five AM on a Tuesday and Gavin Free is passed out in his dorm room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	respite

It’s five AM on a Tuesday and Gavin Free is passed out in his dorm room. Passed out of course, because three hours ago he’d been hunched over his desk in the center of the room, repeatedly running a hand through his hair as he’d read the same sentence over and over again, each time willing it to make sense. But, for as hard as he’d tried, whatever it was the book was trying to tell him would not stick.

 Lightly gnawing the inside of his cheek he’d huffed, trying a few more times to see the printed words of the page in front of him as something other than gibberish. This was hour infinite of finals week and every night so far had been spent this way, the tedium eating away at Gavin until he wanted to scream. Admittedly a man of little patience, Gavin found it hard enough to focus on regular life. Sitting here reading and rereading the ins and outs of Javascript 5 might as well have been torture.

 Eventually, or rather, finally, his shoulders slumped with a long sigh and his head dropped to the open book with a _thud_ , painfully admitting defeat.

Wincing, the boy had flicked his eyes up and stared out the window in front of him, tracing the flurry of snowflakes that spun down the sky. Just illuminated by a streetlamp’s glow that hardly reached this high up, the little white specks were the breaking point for Gavin. Two in the morning, snowing, in _Austin, Texas._ Perhaps his mind had left him.

He needed to lie down.

Dragging his palm down his face in an attempt to ease the tension off a little, he moved from his desk and stood. The bones in his back crackled after being still for so long and his stomach lurched with each corresponding pop. Pointedly he moved towards the left half of the dorm, his half, and flopped down face-first onto his bed with a muffled groan. His eyes and the brain behind them all but sang at the welcome darkness.

Numbly he knew he’d regret leaving the light on later, but he excused it by saying that he was just doing it for his roommate Dan, who was doing a little pre-final _cramming_ of his own.

Lips curling into a wry smile, Gavin let that thought be his last as he’d wormed deeper into the contours of his sheets, body slowly relaxing as sleep took place of his conscious mind.

xx

Later on they would attest the fire to a stovetop cooker, an item not even remotely allowed in the dorms. That, as well as a student whose own overworked mind would lead them to, one, leave the cooker next to their low-hanging curtains and two, fall asleep while the appliance was still on.

It would not take long at all for the fire to build up enough heat and smoke to set off the alarms, and at five fifteen in the morning Gavin is yanked out of a warm, much needed nap and is thrust back into the cold, jarring reality of the waking world. The room light burns his eyes and he’d been passed out in a puddle of his own drool, this is not how he’d wanted to wake up. Numbly, he finds himself snarling at Dan to turn off his _damn_ music.

But, for as much that can be said about the intelligence of Gavin Free, he can still recognize a flashing white light and shrill scream of an alarm as his brain flickers to life. 

Sluggish and confused he awakens, pulling himself out of his sheets and rubbing drearily at his eyes. Outside the door he can hear the sounds of worried voices and fast footsteps and his mind moans at him to respond to the genuine sounds of danger.

He checks the time on his phone (5:16 am), checks the window to see if it’s still snowing, (it is.) then checks his pulse to make sure he already hasn’t died and this isn’t the escort line to Hell (can’t be sure).

But instinctual fear and the worried shouts of confused students motivate him enough to yank on a pair of sneakers, to cram his room ID and phone into his pocket. On a whim he yanks the scarf his mother had sent him out of the closet and wraps it snugly around his neck. He tells himself to wear more, to grab more, but everything inside of him is remembering what singing cartoon dinosaurs told him as a child, and that was to drop everything and go.

And so he does. He tests the door in front of him to make sure it’s not scorching and then he steps out, watching as more and more of the students on his floor do the same. They yank their doors shut behind them and clap their hands over their ears, ambling towards the bright red EXIT signs at the end of the halls, looking equal parts terrified and _Walking Dead_ extra. 

Gavin joins them, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and moving in the half-rushed-half-shuffle that the rest of the students do until he hits the bottom floor of the building. And with no other alternative, he carries on into the cruelest winter Austin has seen in years.

Instantly the cold wind bites through the thin cotton of his shirt and the jeans on his legs. As he half-walks half-is-shoved through the emergency exit doors, the thin layer of snow on the ground seeps into his sneakers.

Gavin’s mind, his mess of thoughts and worry and sleep deprived electrical synapses _howl_.

 Realistically they have places to go to in the wake of emergencies such as this. Some people look to be heading in directions with purpose, though most are either headed straight for the parking lot or are standing in the courtyard, phones pressed tight to their ears. Gavin’s mind whirs, where _are_ they supposed to go in the midst of an emergency? Fingers tapping his pocket, he considers calling Dan to see if he knows, but his roommate is across campus if he’s on it at all, and most likely dead asleep.

He could call his host family, he thinks. But the Ramseys live an easy half hour away and Gavin thinks he’d rather freeze to death than wake Geoff up at five thirty in the morning because he can’t remember where to go in case of emergency. And really, he’s sure he’s got other options somewhere but it’s five in the damn morning during hell week and he can’t _think_ to-

His phone hums against his thigh and Gavin jumps to attention.

With already-shivering fingers Gavin pulls the phone out and squints at it in the darkness. It’s a text, and at this hour and in this situation it shouldn’t make his stomach-lining quiver out of place, but it does anyway. 

Michael Jones. A friend, or at least frienemy, no- friend, Gavin had met over the course of the semester. They’d met through some shared computer science classes and over time had just clicked. Gavin had slowly gotten to know him as they found themselves winding up in cafés or a libraries together, and the pair had started out trading rolled eyes about droning professors in too long lectures, but had soon moved on to discussions of why a kid from the UK would be attending a Texas college, or why someone from New Jersey would do the same.

Michael had a sour mouth and a biting tongue that didn’t always seem to match up with his exterior, all curled hair and freckles and bright brown eyes. And for all of the reasons above, Gavin was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

Fast friends wouldn’t be the best term for them, but it was something along those lines. Whatever the natural force was that drove Michael to plopping down in spots next to him during lecture was the same that kept Gavin from retreating back to his dorm instantly afterwards, instead sitting across from Michael in the student center and stealing his chips-that-were-called-chips-because-what-he’s-talking-about-is-crisps while Michael berated him for it.

And it’s this Michael, who calls him a dumbass twice as much as he calls him his name, whose laugh is infectious and whose anger is even funnier, who Gavin has already brought to a Ramsey dinner once under the guise of his friend _having_ to try authentic Texas barbeque, (though the tight smiles from Geoff and Griffon betrayed that his plan wasn’t as smooth as he’d hoped,) who is texting him.

 ---Michael J.

  What the hell’s going on over there? Ray said half of West Jester just emptied out of the building.

A particularly freezing gust of wind does the trick of knocking a smirk off of Gavin’s face and he’s grateful as he retreats further away from the building in hopes of shelter. His fingers slide over the slippery surface of his phone and he barely manages to type out:

 --- Fire alarm. How does Ray know? Why are you awake?

And then hits send and crosses his arms. Most people who haven’t gotten in their cars and cranked the heat to seventy have made their way to the gym across the street. Gavin turns to stare at it, cringing at idea of going and at the ever-present scent of sweat and cleaning products that hangs around it. Michael gets back to him fast.

\---Michael J

  Ray’s in East Jester, he just watched everything go down. He says it looks like someone flooded an anthill. And it’s finals week, dumbass, I’m studying.

Gavin cranes his neck up, studying the building opposite his own. Numbly he wonders what Ray, Michael’s roommate, is doing there, but he figures to ask later. Instead he turns and marches through the unforgiving dusting of snow towards the gym.

  --- Youre still studying?? When do you sleep?

 The cold is swallowing him alive. The backs of his legs sting and his eyes hurt to blink, frozen in a permanent squint.

\--- Michael J  
    I’ll sleep for two weeks straight when this is over.

Each footstep is a battleground, Gavin thinks he might not make it.

\---Michael J

   Where are you?

 Gavin won’t say out loud that the first thing he’d thought of upon viewing Michael’s text was the giant fireplace in the commons room of his residence hall. But, then again, Gavin’s never much been in the business of lying to himself either, at least when things are dire. And in the span of a few seconds he finds that all he can think about is the cold tile floor of the gym, the smell of treadmill rubber and yoga mats, and of Michael’s dorm room that Gavin’s only ever been to once. 

Stopping in his tracks, Gavin sends back quickly that the only place that looks to be accommodating is the gym, and he presses send hoping that it looks pathetic enough to garner some attention. The cold in his bones keeps sending shivers up and down his body and he’s yawning as well, snowflakes in the early morning landing on his teeth. Behind him there’s all kinds of commotion at the dorms and Gavin _just_ wants to be warm.

\---Michael J.

  That sucks ass. How far is it from West Jester to BHD?

Right to the point, not pretending to tiptoe around it. Gavin appreciates this, as it’s equally in Michael’s nature to fuck with him as it is to be a good person and invite him over. Silently, Gavin thanks whatever natural force it was that led Michael not to move into the rooms at the other end of the campus, and maybe spares a polite thank you prayer to the room that had gone up in flames.

Then he takes that one back because that’s horrible, and instead tells Michael it’s a ten-minute walk if he hurries.

 ---Michael J

  Well you better hurry then, I don’t have all night.

 ---Michael J

  No, seriously, the sun rises in two hours.

 ---Be there soon. :)

 Gavin writes this absentmindedly, adjusting his trajectory to lead towards the smaller cluster of buildings nearby.

 xx

 Michael is waiting outside the building, bundled tightly in a coat that drapes heavily over his shoulders and his tangles of auburn hair are tucked neatly under his beanie. He’s staring at his phone with the light reflecting off his glasses when Gavin approaches, and he blinks up in amusement as the boy slip-slides up the icy path towards him.

“Jesus Christ.” Michael says as Gavin reaches his side, hands tucked tight into his armpits. “You do not look so great.”

 Gavin yanks the scarf he’d pulled over his lips down, and even that sudden blast of cold is too much. He leans towards the doors of the building, clattering teeth inhibiting his speech.

“Well it’s b-been quite a rough morning. S-sorry I don’t look as fresh as daises.”

 Michael shrugs under the heftiness of his own coat. “I’ll let it slide this once.”

 Gavin’s led in quickly, the door wheezing shut behind them as the wind tries to slam it but the hydraulics won’t let it happen. The instant warmth is a godsend and Gavin all but whimpers at it, clenching his fists and toes until they start to feel again. Michael watches him, amused.

 The hall itself is dimly lit and Michael walks down it with confidence, past the poor student on shift at the twenty-four hour help desk who stares them both down as they walk past. The student looks like they want to protest, bringing in unauthorized guests at satan o’clock in the morning surely isn’t recommended, but they let the two of them go unscathed. When they’re out of earshot Michael mutters “That’s why you share notes, Gavvy. Life tips.”

 “ _Gavvy_.” It’s too early for this.

 They wander down a long hall until Michael stops in front of a door and pulls out his ID card again. The door itself is decorated with a handmade name plaque on a dry-erase board with Michael and Ray’s names written in bubbly letters. A bear face doodle decorates the in-curve of the L in Michael’s name and Ray’s is covered in roses, and Gavin must be staring because Michael laughs when he seems to remember it’s there.

 “Oh yeah, this thing. It used to be better, but the RA made us erase all the dicks. Gift from Lindsay and Barbara, girls down the hall. They’re a’ight.”

 “Ah.” Gavin mutters. His mind hums to only one conclusion and he tries to sound offhand when he asks “They hot?”

“Yeah.” Michael answers, just as nonchalant. Gavin’s stomach does that thing again where it’s unhappy. “I think they _might_ be engaged to each other though. Like, matching promise rings on necklaces and stuff.”

 Then it’s not so bad.

Michael’s dorm room is a welcome, welcome sight. It hasn’t changed much from the last time Gavin was here, the white walls plastered in posters, most of them hung in frames, a few taped. There’s a tv between two bunk beds with an xbox underneath, and the bottoms of the bunks have been ripped out, one side replaced with a desk, the other a small couch. Books are stacked on both, though Michael’s is clearly the side with the humming laptop and notebook filled to the margins with scribbles.

 At the other end of the room there’s a makeshift kitchenette, minifridge, microwave, coffee maker and sink. It’s small, the same size as any other dorm room, and the only thing that stands out is that this place is unusually tidy. From how Michael complains about is roommate’s “I clean once a week” rule and how that is unacceptable, Gavin figures the upkeep is Michael’s doing.

It’s nice.

It smells like him.

“Home sweet home.” Michael says, shutting the door behind them.

He tucks his coat and hat away in a closet and turns, yawning and lifting his arms until they pop (another victory in queasiness for Gav,) and then trudges over to his desk, picking up a pen and hitting the play button on his computer so music fills the room’s emptiness.

“Make yourself comfortabe.” Michael says through another yawn, and Gavin stands awkwardly in the threshold of the room, unsure where to go. His mind and body call out for sleep but there’s no way in hell he’s ambling up there to sleep in a stranger’s sheets (or asking to,) and it’s too early in the morning to pick at Michael’s nerves while he’s trying to study. (Read: he has too much ability to kick him out.)

So instead Gavin peels his scarf off, hanging it on a hook and then kicking off his soaked sneakers. The most logical place to be he supposes is the couch, and he’s suddenly very grateful for his slender body as he tiptoes around Michael to plop down on it. A small heater fogs the window on the far end and Gavin crowds his body near it.

Silence tries to find them then, as Gavin drinks the heather’s warmth while Michael’s pen traces over line after line of text. The music he plays is quiet and the atmosphere is comfortable but it’s either the time or each other that’s setting them off. Gavin shifts restlessly on the couch and Michael can’t appear to stop rearranging his glasses.

Finally it becomes too much as Michael sighs, turning in his swivel-chair to where Gavin sits, asking, “You drink coffee, right?”

“Right now? As long as it’s warm I’d drink anything.”

Within a heartbeat he’s saying “Not urine,” just as Michael goes “What about piss?”

They laugh and the awkwardness lifts a little. Michael gets to his feet, turning on the coffee maker while Gavin turns his hands over the heater.

“Thanks for this, by the way." Gavin says. He's warmer now, even with the snow dampened clothes and a wind chill that should have settled in his bones by now. He's warm in other ways as well, like the snug heat that settles in his chest as Michael nods back at him with a shrug.

"No problem." He says, "What was I supposed to do, let you freeze to death?"

The heat piques up then, almost too much now, as it threatens to redden his cheeks. He pulls away from the window. Exhaustion is making him sentimental and loopy.

"Well yeah, you could have." Gavin says with a yawn. He's fighting off an annoyingly telling smile and Michael still has his back to him, fiddling with a coffee maker that’s begun to burp and gurgle and the smell of it adds another layer of drowsy comfort. Gavin thinks to tell Michael to hurry up, as he’s not much longer for the waking world.

“But you’d always warm up your boisiccle, wouldn’t you Michael?”

Michael’s shoulders go rigid for a second and Gavin smirks. His loopiness is going to get him killed. Or worse, thrown out.

“Nah, not really.” The other boy fires back after a moment. “But the last thing I needed was guilt on my conscience because I was awake when the idiot wearing the size-small t-shirt froze to death in the courtyard and didn’t do anything about it.”

“Aww Michael, you’re too kind.” Gavin coos coyly, and this time he laughs when Michael turns to give him a pointed eye-roll. If there has ever been anything in Gavin’s life more satisfying than getting him to make the “You’re such a shit” face, Gavin can’t make himself remember.

“Yeah,” Michael says in short chuffs, “Keep that up and next time this happens you’ll sleep it off next to the ellipticals.” But he’s laughing and Gavin only grins back at him as the boy makes the ten-step journey in his direction, a steaming mug in each hand.

Gavin is back to hugging the far end of the couch to embrace the heater and there’s plenty of room for two people, but Michael still chooses to plop down near the middle of it. He lands easily close enough for his knee to bump Gavin’s and for his elbows to end up on Gavin’s ribs and Gavin just watches him, befuddled. Then Michael is handing him a mug and apparently they’re just not saying anything about how their thighs are squished against each other. Alright. Michael sips off the top of this drink while his eyes gaze forward at nothing.

 The first thing Gavin does is take a needy mouthful, and it scalds every inch of his mouth and burns a firetrail all the way down his chest. He yelps in shock, but at least the instant pain of fire in his gut does well to quiet the butterflies there. And instead of focusing on how Michael’s elbow is resting on his arm, Gavin swallows the drink with a pained gasp, putting the mug down quickly.

“H-hot!” He sputters, gulping down air. Michael stares at him incredulously, and a more polite person might not laugh as Gavin burps up stomach-fulls of hot air, but Michael is not that person. Gavin writhes back into the couch and Michael cackles.

“No shit it’s hot, I literally poured it out of the machine ten seconds ago!”

Gavin cradles his mouth for a second; still trying to make his entire being not feel like he’s just swallowed lava. In the process though, more of Michael is pressed against him. And the boy is making no effort to move away and he’s watching Gavin with bright eyes behind his glasses and Gavin is _burning._

Straightening up after watching Michael staring bemusedly at him for too long, Gavin wipes a line of saliva off his bottom lip and stares forward. Michael’s still shaking his head, snorting. “Dumbass. Do you need a glass of water? Burn cream?”

Gavin burps, “No, I’m alright. I’m fine.”

“Idiot.”

Gavin adjusts himself so they’re back to knee knocking space and he sips more gently at the coffee, huffing a sigh while Michael does the same. The heat in his stomach mingles with the warmth in his chest, and it makes something tolerable, something nice.

Michael’s smiling. Gavin is too.

“I think.” He says, staring out the window where the low moon warns that the sky wants to lighten, “That this is one of my worst experiences at University…but in a good way.”

“Oh yeah.” Michael says, and when Gavin looks at him his hair is fluffy and his eyelids are drooping, “Why is that?”

“Well, ’cause I got kicked out of my dorm by a fire into a blizzard at bloody five in the morning during hell week,” He starts. Michael blinks and it takes his eyes too long to open again.

“Alright, I’m with you so far.”

“But then my friend Michael took me back to his dorm room so I wouldn’t have to sleep on sweaty gym mats and he made me coffee that is, I’m sorry to say, very ineffectual.”

Michael smiles into his cup, taking another sip before admitting defeat and placing it on his desk. Gavin follows suit, plunking his mug down on the windowsill.

“Oh yeah?” He says, voice heavy. “Well, I’m glad I could help.”

“Yeah,” Gavin says. It’s too cheesy, too kind and thankful, but Gavin doesn’t care. “Me too.”

Conversation ends there as Gavin stares out the window at the falling snow and catches sight of Michael’s reflection doing the same. There’s all sorts of things going on in Gavin’s mind right now. In about seven hours he’s got a final to take but he couldn’t be paid to care because Michael is so warm next to him, steadily nodding off, his body slumping more and more in Gavin’s direction as he goes under. Gavin’s heart wants to beat fast and his mind wants to tell him that he’s cusping on something important here, but really all he can focus on is the weight over his eyes and Michael’s steadying breathing next to him.

Whatever playlist Michael had been listening to must not be set to repeat because the last song hums to a close, and when Gavin blinks his eyes open again (He’d not even realized how long they’d been closed,) the room is silent, save for their paired breathing. He looks out the window and sees Michael’s reflection; head lopped over and out like a light. Not that he hadn’t felt the weight of the boy resting on him already, but turning to see might disturb him, and Gavin can’t make himself do that.

Finally he allows his own consciousness to go without restraint. He swears on all he can that his head lands on top of Michael’s curls by chance, but when Michael doesn’t stir or protest he indulges and lets himself stay there.

Gavin doesn’t have a concise memory of falling asleep. When, exactly, his eyes close for the final time is lost to him. But he takes a heavy comfort in the event all the same, as his thoughts fade out of the hellishness that had been the night and instead narrow down to the warmth and scent of the body beside him, and the shadows that spiral into dreams.

 


End file.
